Hope. Happiness. Hilarity.

Christmas 2016

And as usual, I have some Prosecco in the room at my hotel, so I shall toast the Christ Child appropriately.

Christmas Eve included a few errands, some I-love-my-dog time, lunch with my beloved J, and then the final matinee of A Christmas Carol at the Rep.

After a quick stop at Schnuck’s, I headed west, and made it to my hotel in three hours and ten minutes, which may be record time. No stops. No whinging. Just a solid drive across Missouri.

And then I dressed for Eucharist, and drove on into the city to attend services at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral. The choir sang an anthem I wrote for them 15 years ago, a setting of Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Oxen.” I’ve never heard them sing it better!

(Sadly, the fire alarm menacingly sounded during their singing of Arlen Clarke’s “Summer in Winter.”)

The Bishop preached. The congregation sang. We’ve got Jesus born. And now I should be in bed.

And so to sleep I shall, but first I listen, as I have for years, to “This Christmastide” sung by the American Boychoir and James Litton. And then to the Brompton Oratory recording of Lauridsen’s “O magnum mysterium.”

And then, safe in the warmth of these choral splendours, mellowed by with bubbly, I sleep content . . . as did the Infant Child so many centuries ago.